


Grocery Run

by bigOwlEngery (Hecatetheviolet)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Violent Thoughts, Withdrawal, a normal trip to a corner store, jon and daisy have a good day, monsters rights to buy chips, recovery buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25513393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecatetheviolet/pseuds/bigOwlEngery
Summary: Jon’s shoulder finds hers in the darkness. “Just the clerk,” He confirms. Daisy snorts at both of them, lurking in the shadowed corner and staring in through the barred windows, like a pair of B movie vampires needing to be invited in. Takes a breath. Steps into the light.The shrill bell over the door makes them both wince. Jon skulks in after her and makes a bee line for the freezers. Icecream and cigarettes. Daisy wants her chips. Painkillers. Soda. They split up. The clerk doesn’t notice.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy Tonner
Comments: 8
Kudos: 134
Collections: Dreaming Words





	Grocery Run

The early night is silent under their feet. Shoulders bump periodically, more to correct a bout of exhausted stumbling than out of any genuine companionship or meaningful contact. It still means a lot.

The walk feels so much longer than any hunt Daisy’s been on. The streetlights and their reflections are still a bit bright for her sensitive eyes, but looking down the darkness of the hollow alleyways makes her shiver and slump with phantom weight. Her stride breaks rhythm again and Jon’s shoulder finds hers. Daisy breathes deep, focuses on the lights in the dark, the regularity of it, focuses on the quiet.

Not so bad, tonight.

Her blood might no longer know true calm, but it’s steady, for now. There is silence and open, vulnerable darkness and no one else on the street besides the two quiet monsters stumbling through the night. A bit of strain tenses her legs, but only enough to feel completely aware of her own body. No pain. Just the low level exhaustion of denying evil on a daily basis - of constant denial traced and monitored second by second by second on an unknown graph to reach humanity. Daisy is so tired and so weak and so achingly hungry. She knows better than Basira that her humanity is long gone. Knows better than to voice that.

It’s Jon’s turn to stumble. She bumps him back up, smirks at his annoyed grumble more out of habit than honesty. Winces in the sudden bright light that spills around the corner. They both stop, a fuzzy warmth existing silently in the bare inch of space between their shoulders as they stare into the over-bright minimart interior. The florescent lights buzz harshly, the type of static-soft noise that Daisy’s grown far too comfortable with. The neat rows of mundane products fill the night with color and performativity and normality and unnecessary little luxuries. Little human things, all in a row. So different from the dark basement of the Archive, the hollow antiquity of the Institute, the solid stone and carved dirt of the tunnels, the brick wall behind Basira’s eyes, the dirt, the dirt, the dirt -

Jon’s shoulder finds hers in the darkness. “Just the clerk,” He confirms. He’s also standing on the concrete, just looking in on that quaint little human store, voice raspy and hesitant, not moving. Daisy snorts at both of them, lurking in the shadowed corner and staring in through the barred windows, like a pair of B movie vampires needing to be invited in. Takes a breath. Steps into the light.

The shrill bell over the door makes them both wince. Jon skulks in after her and makes a bee line for the freezers. Icecream and cigarettes. Daisy wants her chips. Painkillers. Soda. They split up. The clerk doesn’t notice.

Daisy’s got a basket full of junk food and an incoming headache when the bell rings again. The label of the generic painkillers she’s squinting at holds her attention from it, from the meaning of it, until the first soft tap of a footstep pricks up her ears. Her awareness unfurls out from her chest in interest. The new late night shopper walks slow and calm just behind her, a single aisle over. Rasping breaths going slowly deep and calm. A jogger? The round mirror in the corner catches the top of their head behind her perfectly. Is she breathing? Is Daisy breathing or is the blood breathing for her? She can faintly smell it now, the drying sweat, wet asphalt, loose adrenaline without fear or terror or worry or spice. The crinkle of a waterproof jacket. Quiet padding of soft soled shoes. Calming breaths. A slowing heart.

Daisy is jolted out of tracing their path by Jon bumping into her arm with his own basket. How much time did she just lose? Daisy breathes forcefully. Calm. Steady. Listens around the noise. Focuses on the quiet.

Her hand is cramping when she slowly forces herself to unlatch her grip on the bottle. Swallows down the rising excitement with a grimace. Breathes in the grimy night air of a dusty corner store, where normal humans work and visit and are working and visiting without issue. Daisy should not be an issue for them. Daisy does not want to be an issue for them. Hell, neither of them are even her preferred prey. Supposedly. Didn’t always matter. Was easy enough to plant evidence afterwords, if it really mattered. It usually didn’t.

An experienced runner, though -

Basket meets her arm again and Jon yawns behind his scarred hand. Can’t hold too much weight with it; keeps trying to hitch the awkwardly sized basket on his hip to compensate. He’s got at least three cartons of horrible, geriatric flavored icrecream that Daisy can see under everything else. She huffs and drops another bottle of painkillers into her own basket. Edges it further down the aisle with her boot. They’re allowed to be paranoid about stocking up. Jon’s got Elias’ institute credit card, anyway.

They make it to the end of the short aisle just as the other customer rounds the other side. Daisy does not look. She doesn’t have to. The neon bright clothes of a late night jogger fill her peripherals. The scent of an experienced runner who knows the streets and how to keep going and going and going fills her awareness to the brim. She kicks her basket around the corner lightly, ignoring the dull glare the clerk shoots her way before returning to their phone. She’s still keyed up and hyperaware of every body around her, so when no second presence warms her side, she knows.

Daisy didn’t look, but Jon did. Just barely. Just a faint turn over his shoulder. Frozen quiet and watchful in that eerie way, that predatory stillness that’s as familiar to Daisy as breathing and blood and hunting and waiting. She reaches out and grabs the lip of his basket and gives it a shake. Jon jolts and whirls around. Clearly regrets moving immediately and takes a few seconds with his eyes closed to steady himself. Looks right up at her all hollow and desperate and takes a step that’s half stumble right into her space. A little flash of green flickers out of his pupils. His stare is an inescapable lock on good days, and this just became a great one. Daisy can't look away. Doesn't want to. Almost vibrating with excitement, matching his. Tight hold on the basket grounding her. But.

It's _rare_. For them to both have eyes on the same prey. Daisy's felt this sudden, perfect companionship with another Hunt-touched before. Worked - or, really, extra-judicially worked - with someone else once or twice. This easy understanding, the chemistry of hunger, the push to use one another to the fullest, to part sated and easy at the end into their own quiet corners of the night. This is. Almost too good. And it would be _good_. Fuck, they could work perfectly together - Jon first, to drum up the terror and set them running, then Daisy chasing them down? Or Daisy first, with Jon as the end marker, the dual edged joy of having chase and prey and sniffing out the unknown ending to that chase until she finds him in the maze of the city? Or both? Hell, it might be Jon who kills them on sheer terror, heart bursting like a rabbit's under his gentle gaze when Daisy leads them right into his path, as they beg for a human hand extended in solace -

They keep their eyes locked in perfect, unblinking silence as the human slowly walks past them. Too close. Can feel the radiant heat on her side. The drum of a heartbeat. The slick slide of a jacket. Then around the corner. They both breathe out. Look away.

“Done?” Daisy rasps, clearing her throat of phantom blood. Mud.

Jon shakes his head, shifts the basket again. Clears his throat carefully. “Melanie wants her poptarts.” Right. Daisy forgot. Other aisle, then.

They shuffle around the corner together. Neither asks if the other can make it. Daisy doesn’t look up at the mirrors, doesn’t listen to the open and close of the freezer doors on the other side of the aisle, doesn’t track movement. Jon has a weak hold on the edge of her jacket and follows, quietly muttering the poptart flavor preferences of everyone in the institute from the basement up. Daisy ignores the flood of words, focuses on the litany of sound. Uses it to drown out the footfalls, the too loud breathing. Her own included.

Final snack duty fulfilled, they finally shuffle to the counter. The clerk is too exhausted in the way of all late shift minimum wage workers to give them more than a blandly annoyed glance when they slowly pile up a small mountain of junk food. Daisy puts all her focus on the rhythmic beep of the scanner instead of the warmth of a still cooling body and soft breaths and the clear, healthy heartbeat directly behind her. Directly in front of her. Surrounded. The clerk is no jogger, but they’re muscled and steady, movements precise but getting faster. The sweet call of fear is slowly welling up. A soft perfume. Daisy watches them both without looking. Knows where and when and how without having to look.

A light bump against her shoulder sends her rocking to the side, and she takes in a hissing breath through her teeth. Grabs her share of the bags.

It doesn’t take long to wrestle with the cloth bags and get them on too-thin shoulders, but there’s an unspoken pact that lends the bare moments of hesitation within the store a sort of frantic energy that’s only exacerbated by how overtly nonchalant they force themselves to act. Daisy steals most of the bags. Resistance training. Plus she likes the lopsided lope an unbalanced load gives her. Keeps her off balance just enough to have to really watch her steps. Jon frowns at her, but doesn’t bother to fight her on it. He hasn’t won yet.

They make it out the door after a perfectly normal and reasonable amount of time. No rush. No delay. The stinging light cuts out immediately in the same shadowed crossroad and Daisy is more relieved than she’d thought by it. Guess the dingy basement life will do that.

Behind them, the bell chimes again. A beat passes. Neither of them stop, but somehow they both have. Quiet. Shoulder to shoulder, they listen to the jogger take off running behind them. Away. Steady, even footfalls trailing off into the distance. Daisy starts forward. Has to shove her bags into Jon’s bags to get hm moving. They stumble on.

The second the front door to the main archive is closed behind them, the bags hit the floor.

“Made it,” Jon gasps.

Daisy snorts, but relaxes until she’s slumped down, sitting directly on the cold marble floor. God, her everything aches. It’s so good. Ah, the rush of successfully going to the store for an hour. Normal human things.

“What the fuck happened to you two?” Asks Melanie from the hallway.

Jon clears his throat and straightens back up. Says in a slightly strangled tone of blase amusement, “Got your poptarts.”

Daisy barks out a laugh, tossing her arm over her eyes before the ceiling light finishes the job of blinding her for the evening. Jon chuckles quietly beside her, then starts shuffling through the bags.

“Sleeping by the door, Daisy?” He asks, still amused.

“Go eat your icecream, grandpa,” She says.

“Hm. Hope your chips aren’t too spicy.”

Daisy sits up and digs out his disgusting BBQ chips and tosses them at him while he tries to hand Melanie her own snacks. She frowns at both of them, then leaves them to it. No threats; progress.

It’s sad, how good they’re all doing, playing at being human. What they have to measure themselves by. Still, it’s a pretty good day. Daisy passes out contently on the sofa in the break room after texting Basira to confirm their safe and uneventful return. Leaves Jon to put everything away on his own even though it’s her turn. Sleeps. Does not dream.


End file.
